I've noticed something lately. Might just be my elderly synapses, or might be a useful trick.
When you're accustomed to operating in Ockham mode, seeking the simplest explanation based on all meaningful facts, Ockham provides a dynamic countervector toward simplicity that increases its force as the idiotic Deepstate complexity gets worse.
Concrete example: Skripal. For the first few days I wasn't paying attention, and assumed that something must have happened, with the hall-of-mirrors entanglement typical of spy operations. I wasn't sure if KGB was involved, but it looked likely from the media "reports".
As the insane contradictions piled up, my assumption got simpler and simpler.
It comes down to exactly TWO facts, the ONLY facts that are not infested and contaminated by government agitprop.
1. Skripal is an employee of MI6.
2. Non-governmental witnesses saw Skripal and his daughter on a parkbench, looking asleep or intoxicated.
Everything else is Deepstate lies, with ZERO corroboration from non-governmental sources.
From those two facts, the Ockham explanation writes itself. Skripal, following MI6 orders, went to a publicly visible parkbench and acted drunk, making sure that non-governmental witnesses saw him. The pre-staged "emergency responders" then hauled him away. The rest of the preplanned nonsense was emitted by UK Deepstate.

Tom Gresham of 'Gun Talk' is a clear thinker. He manages to stand back and observe the situation objectively, avoiding the tired nonsense that infests "both" "sides" of the "Robust Debate" and "National Conversation" on guns.
He missed the standback on one item yesterday. He noted the irony and hypocrisy of university endowment funds. The universities constantly screech anti-gun propaganda, but the endowments hold plenty of shares in gunmakers.
Not hypocrisy at all, just smart stock manipulation. Talk up the stock you own.
When people fear a shortage is coming, they buy up the product that is supposed to be short. Well known in the context of banks and grocery stores.
Same here. The universities and media create a highly credible fear of incipient confiscation, and the gunmakers profit from the fear. The endowment funds take some of the profit.
= = = = =
Later: Here's a more specific article on the subject. Since KREM featured it, we can safely assume this is a national push by Bloomberg to force endowments and pension funds to divest. KREM always serves the Sorosians.
Incidentally, I still have some money in the Wash State pension fund discussed by the article. When I left WSU in 2002, I decided to leave the automatic deductions in the fund. It has done well, with an average return of 6% every year. Unlike other 'progressive' states, Wash has a tradition of good money management which Demon Inslee hasn't yet ruined. I suppose he will break the pension fund now that Bloomberg is pressing the issue.

Headline:U.S. considers Libya's denuclearization model for North Korea: Bolton
LIBYA.
You can't get more FUCKING explicit. We want Kim to denuclearize so we can kill Kim and destroy his country.
My grim fucking prediction turns out to be more than fucking true.
Why didn't the two parts of Korea unite fast WITHOUT giving up their nukes? Then the USA STRONG demonic genocidal infinitely wicked hypermonster would be helpless. Dammit, dammit, dammit.
Putting it another way: You could've had Samsung Bombs. Uncle Sam vs Auntie Samsung. Auntie wins.
= = = = =
Later and calmer thought: NoKo is not the same as Libya. NoKo is giving up its nukes and sovereignty so it can immediately become a section of the Silk Road and part of the South. Libya wasn't going to be part of anything, and didn't even have friends among its Arab neighbors. When we attacked, Algeria and Egypt didn't complain.
We aren't going to destroy the South because our own economy depends on it, regardless of nukes. If the North's people are part of a complete Korea, they're safe.
Kim's sudden change of heart happened immediately after his quick trip to Beijing, so it's safe to say that China was the prime motivator. China and Russia and SoKo want the same result, which is a peaceful and prosperous Korea linked into the Silk Road.

Why do sane adults appreciate Putin? It's very simple. When he speaks he sounds like a sane adult. He answers questions directly and appropriately, with thought and logic and facts. Most of the time he knows ALL the facts. If he's unsure he says so. If he doesn't know the answer he says so. He NEVER emits standard boilerplate.
The political and corporate leaders of Sorosian countries NEVER sound like adults or even humans. The vast majority of their emissions are the same official Party Buzzword over and over and over. On the rare occasions when they leave the script, their answers are disjointed and nonsensical scraps of psychotic word-salad.
Well. If they're not human, what are they? Lower than any mammal for sure. Cats and dogs and squirrels have at least a dozen 'words', with emotions creating variations of each 'word'. Much larger vocabulary and emotional range than a Sorosian. Birds have an even wider vocabulary.
The British Parliament gave me the answer. The Speakah emits the Party Buzzwords over and over, and the Backbenchahs simply emit a solid Buzz.

The Korean peace agreement finishes TWO evils that were left hanging in 1953.
Obviously it finishes the STALEMATE that paused the war.
It also finishes STALINISM.
Stalin died in March 1953. In most of the Soviet world his super-brutality faded down to a dull authoritarian regime by 1960, with a few major exceptions.
Mao rebranded Stalinism and continued redlining the brutal engine. Romania and Albania and North Korea also carried on, linking their trailers onto China instead of Russia.
China broke after the Cultural Revolution in '68, and gradually faded to authoritarian capitalism without ever officially switching brands.
Romania and Albania burned out in 1990. Romania is managing to repair the damage, but Albania is still competely broken and ungoverned.
After that, only NoKo remained absolutely Stalinist.
Now it's all over, and reunification will give NoKo a much better restoration than Romania and Albania.

Two days ago, just after Korea committed peace, I predicted that President ClintonTrump would immediately try to fuck it up and resume war.
Yup.
Even more scary, the family of "innocent hiker" Warmbier has filed a lawsuit against the North for treating their nasty little spy the way any sane nation treats a nasty spy.
Now that the North is moving toward denuking, it's IMMEDIATELY VULNERABLE to preparations for invasion.
When you see Deepstate focusing attention on an individual "victim" (spy) who was "unjustly" punished for invading Country X, you can be sure a much larger invasion of Country X is coming, to get revenge on Country X for behaving normally and sanely. Normal nations are UNACCEPTABLE INTOLERABLE ALL OPTIONS ON THE TABLE.
I tried to warn them. I hoped the two Koreas would unite quickly and solidly WITHOUT giving up their nukes. The complete nation would then be defensible on all fronts. A strong industrial economy that USA STRONG can't afford to divorce, plus a meaningful deterrent against USA STRONG military force.

Old joke: You're an intellectual if you can hear the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger.
Obsolete now because the Lone Ranger has been off the air for 60 years. Very few people, intellectual or not, think of the Lone Ranger at all.
= = = = =
New version:
Arirang had an interview with 'expert' Robert Kelly about yesterday's blockbuster peace agreement. I couldn't pay attention to what Kelly was saying because I was waiting for the kids to come swaggering into the studio, followed by the desperate wife attempting to be 2-dimensional while dragging the kids off camera.
Obviously I'm not an intellectual!

Kazakhstan has switched its writing system from Cyrillic to Latin. In terms of basic fit, it's probably a wash; Kazakh is a Turkic language with lots of action at the phonemic level, so the written symbols are sort of loose. Like English where each written vowel has many possible sounds, but more so.
Kazakh required about 5 special added characters in Cyrillic, and still requires about 5 diacritics in Latin.
So what's the advantage of such a costly move? The government claims businesses will do better in dealing with the West, but that's illogical. Dealing with the West means learning some English. An American or French businessman is NOT going to have an easier time understanding Kazakh when it's written in Latin characters. It's still an unfamiliar and opaque language, with no cognate words.
Most of the residents speak Russian either natively or secondly, so Cyrillic is far more natural for the local citizens. Kazakhstan has ALWAYS been part of the Russian Empire, with connections that varied over the years.
This move has a suspiciously Sorosian flavor, like the earlier attempt by Ukraine to become "western", or the Catalunyan movement. Both turned out to be Soros chaos generators, all pain and no gain.
Fixing what ain't broke is a good way to ruin a machine or a country, and Soros knows it.
Is there evidence of Sorosian influence? Yes, but not directly on this topic. The OSF website shows plenty of activity in Kazakhstan, and I remember seeing an even more specific focus in the DCleaks documents, which have since been memoryholed by Soros. (There is a supposed 'mirror' archive, but it doesn't work.)

Wikileaks continues to be dangerously idealistic.
None of the answers are correct.
If there was such a thing as a "Peace Prize", both Moon and Kim would deserve it. Moon representing the long hard work by the South, Kim for deciding to serve his people instead of continuing a harmful dynasty.
But the Nobel is a Genocide Prize, given to the most effective mass murderer or destroyer of civilization. So the Nobel this year will go to May and Macron for the best genocidal false accusations against Russia.

A rather silly Gernsback item led to a seriously impressive portrait of a British Fordist.
On a tower belonging to the Cherry Blossom Boat Polish Co at Chiswicken, England, a clock has been erected in combination with a giant barometer and thermometer...
= = = = =
Looking it up, it's Chiswick boot polish, not Chiswicken boat polish ... and the company was interesting for much deeper reasons than its barometer tower.

Mr Dan Mason, together with his brother Charles, wholeheartedly associated himself with the welfare of the company employees. In 1918, the company was one of the first to introduce a five day working week of 44 hours. Other early innovations included a pension scheme, and a "dispensary" made up of a main surgery, rest rooms, a dental clinic and a chiropody clinic, all supervised by qualified personnel.
Dan and Charles Mason purchased Boston House and adjoining buildings in Chiswick Square.
Boston House was used as a social club for the female employees and the other buildings were
rented to company employees as homes. Extensive grounds to Boston House were laid out for all types of games, including a bowling green, eight grass tennis courts and four all-weather courts, plus a well equipped sports pavilion.

Social economy, along the same lines as NCR, Weston Instruments, Ford, Conoco, and many other privately owned US companies in those decades.
Later on, Wall Street reasserted Dickensian sweatshops in UK and US, enabling the new Fordists of Korea and Japan to out-compete our Dickens. Intended consequence, of course. Wall Street wants to see DEAD employees and DEAD industries. EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE ALL REAL VALUE, replace it with pure satanic mathematics.

Every day we hear about fake "historic" "firsts" that are just ordinary constants.
Finally we have a MEANINGFUL historic first.
Years of hard work by the South, boosted by carrots from Russia and sticks from China, led to this HISTORIC meeting and discussion.
= = = = =
Later, listening to the post-meeting announcement: This is GIANT.
The war is officially ended, both sides will immediately halt all military and propaganda activity, and both sides will begin moving toward unification.
HISTORIC isn't a big enough word!
Less important but still nice: This agreement has factored USA out of the equation. The later meeting of Kim and ClintonTrump can't add anything to this perfect fait accompli. It's all done. The only thing ClintonTrump can do is fuck it up, and I'm sure heshe will. USA STRONG cannot possibly allow any country to commit peace. Unacceptable intolerable all options on the table.

As long as I'm being a Yno today... Here's another Gernsback item from 1930.
Fairly serious question! Why haven't pedalboats become regular transportation? They wouldn't be practical on open ocean, but on a lake or calm harbor they would get you from one place to another easily.
I remember using a rented** pedalboat on a recreation lake. The effort was the same as bicycling, and the resulting speed was in the same range as biking. In the right place it would be real transportation. The boat could be large enough for a cuddy cabin, so you could anchor it and live in it for a while. Mix sail and pedal and electric motor, and you're ready for anything! Pedal up the generator for exercise when you're anchored, let the battery help when you move.
= = = = =
** Well, actually I didn't rent it. The commercial part of the park was closed for the season and one of the boats was unchained, so I took it out for a little ride. More fun that way.

Convective thought.
Why isn't there a standard Scale for Modularity vs Centralization?
As I've discussed forever, Nature is perfectly modular. From the 'organelles' inside a cell, to cells, to tissues, to organs, to complete organisms, to colonies of organisms, every layer has its own range of control and action, and every layer has only limited access and control to lower layers.
Human combinations, from family to company to neighborhood to city to township to county and upward, also work best when they follow the same rule. Strict boundaries on each level, minimal access and control to the next layer, no direct access or control from top to bottom.
The Sorosian side of the world has abandoned modularity. The topmost layer (US, EU, Google) has total access and control on each individual, and all intermediate layers are factored out. They still exist as symbols, but they have no function.
Satan also uses an "opposite" argument to accomplish the same goal. The Libertarian tech monsters seek no government at ANY level, which AUTOMATICALLY GUARANTEES that Soros and Bezos have universal and total control over all individuals.
= = = = =
We have many commonly used indexes and scales. Some are intentionally backward like GDP, others are basically valid like the Gini index.
We don't even discuss modularity in public. Occasionally we'll hear an anecdotal measurement or comparison. A few years ago the governor of Montana commented that Canadian provinces are more modular than US states. Accurate observations about the USSR noted that the various modules (republics, okrugs, oblasts, etc) had far more independence than our propaganda told us. Catholics do sometimes discuss decentralization, but usually in a reverse context. Bergoglio, like his boss Soros, uses the image of modularity to weaken the modules for easier conquest.
If we had a 'commensurable' index, we could fit these observations into a meaningful framework that could lead to PURPOSEFUL GOALS. A political or intrachurch movement could seek to raise the modularity from 40 to 60, and would know when the goal was reached.

In a move to capture the rapidly burgeoning market for nailing barn wood to perfectly good interior walls, Hobby Lobby has released a new line of shiplap anointed by Chip and Joanna Gaines, the company confirmed Wednesday.
“The Gaineses personally pray over and anoint with oil each and every piece of shiplap you purchase here at Hobby Lobby,” CEO David Green said in a press conference. “You can rest easy knowing that each and every person involved in the production, shipping, and sale of your shiplap is a believer.”

Good parody as always, but the picture shows NON-LAPPED wood.
Convective thought:
Lapped siding is among the most important basic inventions. Lapping uses gravity to advantage, throwing rain outward, minimizing contact time of water and wood, preventing penetration of joints. Without the lap, you need serious caulking or weatherstripping or prayer at all joints.
Unlike most basic inventions, lapping wasn't copied from obvious natural models. Trees and plants don't have any lapped parts, presumably because trees and plants want to absorb water. Mammalian hair uses layering to keep water out, but layering doesn't suggest lapping. The only non-microscopic examples are fish scales and armadillos, but neither uses the lap to shed water.
Later thought: Fish and armadillos use lapping to form a hard surface that can bend, presumably to fend off the teeth of predators. I wonder if the first builders of armor were inspired by fish?

Advertised in another Gernsback publication:
I can't find any text from 'Technocracy Review'. It's not in the American Radio History website, and Google mentions it but doesn't find any actual texts. Apparently it didn't last long.
David Lasser was probably the key player. He was one of Gernsback's main partners and editors in the science and radio magazines, and was a solid Socialist and union activist who finally got disgusted with CPUSA.
Foster and Browder were CPUSA, which means FBI. Browder's grandson is still playing on Deepstate's team.
From the blurb:
Should we have more machines or less? is the price system played out? Should we have
electric dollars or gold? Do we need a New Deal or a revolution?
This was Feb 1933, just before FDR started work. Some of the questions were answered or solved by FDR. He restarted the price system by breaking the bankers, and he switched gold from a part-time currency to a full-time ground point, which is gold's best function.
The reference to 'electric dollars versus gold' is still an open question. In 1933, computers (IBM punch card sorters with arithmetic ability) were already doing much of the calculating for major companies and government, but the stored value was purely on paper. Banking didn't switch to full digital representation of value until the '70s. Digital representation still fails more often than paper, and Bitcoin, the latest 'electric dollar', is just a fraud.

Professor Polistra hasn't done a proper Language Update in many months, and this item still doesn't count..... but she noticed a couple of old words that need to be updated for modern service.
ZH reprinted an article attempting to define the business model of the tech demons. Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc.
Prof P, seeing the world from a 1939 perspective as always, has a simple old-fashioned description of the business model. Any literate person before the age of TV would instantly recognize what these demon corporations are doing.
Espionage and sabotage.
We are voluntarily SUBMITTING our entire lives and thoughts to these corporations for espionage at a level far beyond Stalin. And in return for receiving our lives and thoughts, the corporations are committing total sabotage. They are tearing apart all culture, religion, logic, skill, and industry.
Quite a deal!

Fake "news" is full of questions about some HUMAN dude in Toronto who used his truck as a weapon against pedestrians. What was his motive? Why wasn't he killed? Was he crazy? Was he connected to ISIS? He's a Russian bot.
(The latter, of course, is NOT a question. All bad things are Russian without any possible hint of doubt. Anyone who turns that sentence into a question is a Russian bot.)
Copying Hart's 1960 question about false bomb reports:
How come HUMANS who mow down pedestrians are evil bots who must be killed, while ACTUAL BOTS that mow down pedestrians must be officially permitted by new laws and new insurance rules?

From Aberree, June 1960.Last month the grownup 'cops and robbers' played like an enemy was sprinkling Oklahoma with bombs, and one of them allegedly [hit] Enid.
More than 32000 Enidites were supposed to have died in this imaginary holocaust, and just for fun we tried to find out if we were among the casualties. However, there's a limit to how far the casualties can participate in these play-like games, and we could feel the ice two miles away.
"Who's calling?" someone asked, and remembering how unfunny the FBI can be with riders who joke with the stewardess about people carrying bombs, we tried to be anonymous.
Luckily they hung up before we could start asking how come false bomb reports get people arrested, yet when done on a mass scale they get official sanction.
Good goddamn question in 1960, even better goddamn question now.
Immediate followup, another good goddamn question.

I wonder if Bitcoin is starting to supplant "global warming" as a guaranteed way to get a grant for ratshit "research"?

In a study published April 23 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Stanford applied physics doctoral student William Gilpin described how swirling liquids, such as coffee, follow the same principles as transactions with cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. This parallel between the mathematical functions governing cryptocurrencies and natural, physical processes may help in developing more advanced digital security and in understanding physical processes in nature.

Sounds a lot like the usual research comparing some miscellaneous thing to "global warming", with the fake promise of using the research to improve our knowledge of "global warming". Now the research is comparing some miscellaneous thing to blockchain, with the fake promise of using the research to improve our knowledge of blockchain.
Since "global warming" and blockchain are both criminal rackets, both PROVABLY AND VERIFIABLY created by CIA and NSA, the substitution makes sense for a grant-seeking academic. The agencies that commit the crimes are always looking for ways to refine the marketing and profitability of the crimes.
Ordinary humans don't need to understand these rackets. We only need to recognize that they ARE rackets. We don't need to improve our knowledge of criminal activity. Just detect it and avoid it.

From a Gernsback mag, 1925:
Partly transcribed:
Had Columbus known as much of English theological literature as he knew of navigation, he might have saved himself a deal of pains in his effort to prove the world was round. He might have consulted a musty tome recently dug out of the dust of Oxford's libraries, etc.
Gernsback's writers should have known better!
Columbus was NOT trying to prove the world was round. He made his journey SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE HE KNEW the world was round. Every literate European at that time also knew the world was round. Chris was only trying to find a quicker route to ship spices from Indonesia to Europe, using the KNOWN FACT that the world is round.
The idea that everyone believed the world was flat is a remarkably persistent Shared Lie, or maybe Shared Ignorance. This ignorance is WORSE than the alleged (but false) ignorance about the world's shape.

An advertisement from one of Gernsback's magazines in 1915:
I have a feeling this might not be easily accepted by modern magazines or websites.
More precisely, a company that even TRIED to submit this ad would be closed, confiscated, and bombed down to bedrock.

The alt.media are weeweed up about a "document" that came through in a FOIA from intel agencies. This "document" shows a wide variety of muscular and mental effects that can be produced by electromagnetic waves.
Obviously the document wasn't written by intel agencies. They have unlimited budgets and their presentations are professional. This looks more like a cartoon from an old semi-underground magazine.
Intel agencies always hoover up (heh) a variety of underground stuff to be sure they can compete with unlicensed practitioners. If somebody outside the agency has truly developed a new means of torture or tyranny, FBI needs to master it. This rarely happens, again because FBI has all the money and workforce in those particular subject areas.
There's nothing new or innovative in the effects listed on the cartoon. All of those effects were well-known to the neurologists and electrotherapeutics types in the 1880s, and were often used as part of magic shows and psychic cults (eg Hubbard) in later eras. Most folks who screw around with electronics (including me!) have encountered at least one of those effects.

1. I've noticed a return of an old fashion this year. Housecoats or smocks. On my morning walk I see people taking the trash to the curb, or standing on the porch to sneak a smoke before work. This year the ladies are often wearing houserobes for those outside chores.
Houserobes were common before 1960 but already gone in my boomer generation. These ladies aren't especially old, so they can't belong to the last generation that was accustomed to houserobes. They've picked up the habit very recently.
= = = = =
2. The decaying apt at 4001 W Crown was finally sold a few months ago; the realtor's sign disappeared last week indicating the deal is concluded. Still no real action toward demolition, still some indications of active squatters. Come on, new owner! Get with it!
June 22: Still no action by buyer, still lots of action by squatters.
= = = = =
3. After the last big windstorm in 2015 I heard people discussing whether it was a good idea to get a metal roof. One of them said it wouldn't help; metal roofs can just peel back and come off in one piece. I wasn't convinced by the image.
Yesterday I saw how it happens. We had a typical season-change wind, about 25G35. Strong enough to knock off some weak branches but nowhere near enough to drop a tree. One neighbor has a metal roof on a large garden shed. The 35 gusts were peeling up one corner of the metal roof and curling it back. Another 10 MPH would have peeled it off entirely.

Soros is breaking Armenia. As more and more countries are rejecting the infection and starting to recover, the Soros virus is seeking new targets. Armenia borders Persia and Turkey, and is close to Russia. Armenia already has long-standing hostility with Turkey. It's an obvious foothold in the Sorosian effort to reinfect and retake Russia and Turkey and Persia.
This will not end until Soros and all of his monstrous demonic tentacles are TOTALLY DESTROYED. DEAD. GONE. DELETED. REMOVED FROM THE UNIVERSE, like smallpox.

Archeologists are trying to understand a set of stones with linear scratches found in Poland. The stones are about 100k years old, before the known start of cave paintings. The article asks: Are the scratches just decoration, or are they symbols with a meaning? Numbers?
The picture shows one of the stones, along with a drawn schematic of the alleged symbols.
I'm normally eager to see evidence of unexpected intelligence in "primitive" humans, but not this time.
This particular stone doesn't need symbolic decoding, and doesn't need to be treated as decoration. It's obvious that the original scratches were a uniform filled-in grid, on the same scale as a window screen. You can see the full grid faintly. As the surface wore down, only the deepest scratches remained. These are much sparser than the grid, suggesting a pattern.
Why would you scratch a fine-grained UNIFORM grid in a stone? Not for decoration, but to make a scrubber. Useful for taking a layer of fat or mold off meat, or skinning a fish, or grinding grain, or washing your own skin.
And that's pretty damn intelligent after all.
Later thought: Some of these stones look more like knife sharpeners than scrubbers.

Looks like Baby Kimmy got a good spanking on his little China vacation. He's making a big rhetorical move.
How does it look to the South, which has been doing the real work toward developing peace and reunification?
Main story:

The surprise announcement came during a plenary meeting of the ruling Workers' Party's central committee on Friday, presided over by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. ...
The North will suspend nuclear tests and test launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles(ICBM) starting Saturday and also shut down the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in the northeastern province. The North said the decision is important in the path toward global nuclear disarmament, adding that Pyongyang will join international efforts to completely end all nuclear testing.
The North said it will by no means use its nuclear weapons as long as there is no nuclear threat or provocation against the regime. It also vowed to never transfer nuclear weapons or technology under any circumstance.
The statement also noted that tasks related to the two-track policy of seeking both nuclear and economic development, adopted in 2013, have all been completed, and the new strategic guideline is to focus all efforts on building up the North's economy.

The liberal ruling Democratic Party welcomed the the announcement from Pyongyang calling it "highly encouraging." Spokesman Park Beom-kye said during a briefing that his party greatly welcomes the North's pledge on denuclearization and taking real action ahead of the inter-Korean summit.
He said the move will contribute to the two Koreas reaching an agreement at the summit aimed at peace and co-prosperity on the Korean Peninsula.
Meanwhile, the conservative main opposition Liberty Korea Party remained skeptical, saying Pyongyang's announcement has little significance and is most likely putting on a show.
LKP spokesman Choung Tae-ok said it cannot be called progress until the goal of complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization is achieved, pointing out that the North has conducted six nuclear tests and is widely suspected of already possessing nuclear weapons.
Choung cited various precedents, including the time North Korea blew up a cooling tower at the Yongbyon nuclear test site in 2008, only to discard its nuclear dismantlement pledge later.

Okay, Baby Donnie. The ball's in your court now. This phrase:
as long as there is no nuclear threat or provocation against the regime
seems to be making a specific request in your direction.

When it comes to spreading myths about national Exceptionality, Krauts are historically a lot worse than Americans, and we're plenty bad.
Americans have always seen Germans as superior. We emulate their horrible example in education, and we follow their insane devotion to theory above reality.
Even during the brief periods when we were fighting the Krauts, we still considered them to be technically superior.
The results of those wars proved the opposite.
We UNDERRATE all other Current Enemies. Cuba and Afghanistan and Iraq and Persia and Syria and Ukraine and Russia were all relatively modern and prosperous when we decided to attack or blockade them for no reason except sadistic brutality. After our brutal sadistic attacks or blockades, the enemies were much closer to our "primitive" stereotypes. We promised to transform them into our bizarre delusional mythical image of ourselves, "democratic" and "capitalist"; but in fact we transformed them into our bizarre delusional mythical image of THEM, primitive and desperate and chaotic.
= = = = =
So it's highly unusual to find an objective picture of Germany, especially in the tech or educational realms.
American Radio History has recently brought in a small collection of an unlikely periodical, Radio Progress, which served Rhode Island. It's much better than you'd expect for a market of that size, and it published an unusually literate and thoughtful picture of Germany in 1925.
This was shortly after the Weimar return to the gold standard to break hyperinflation, and it appears that the economy had stabilized quickly. Gold will do that for you.
Sounds like a top-down socialist system. Big transmitters and low-power receivers and licensing. This public-private mix continued during Hitler's allegedly fascist setup, and still works roughly the same way today. Corporations can make a profit but MUST serve public purposes FIRST.
Modern Kraut propaganda, and modern USA STRONG propaganda about Germany, continues to see Germany as super-prosperous and super-advanced. False then and now.
In short, the GOOD parts and BAD parts of the German system have remained relatively constant from Kaiser Bill to Fuhrer Adolf to Kaiserin Angela.
The good part is the tightly regulated private sector, which basically follows Sharia. Manufacturers must serve workers before shareholders, and health care must serve patients before shareholders. Working men get a fair shake, robber barons have to pay heavily for their privileges.
The bad part is the perpetual fetish for theories and details, and the arrogant Exceptionality.
We have always idolized and imitated the bad parts and ignored the good parts.
= = = = =
Later, I remembered that I had included a model of a Telefunken crystal receiver with the USA Signal Corps stuff that I use for Morse scenes. Here's the Telefunken next to a USA military crystal set, both from WW1.
Then as now, Kraut stuff is sharper and crisper, more metal and less wood, more Bauhaus and less Bungalow.

Polistra sends V for Victory!
Orban has proved that you CAN defeat a bully if you RESIST firmly and persistently. After gaining a convincing mandate in the recent election, Orban strengthened his laws against Satan's NGOs. In response, Satan pulled out of Hungary and moved his subdemons to Berlin, where ACTUAL NAZIS are MUCH more comfortable.
Later thought: The converse also applies. You can win elections with a convincing mandate if you resist bullies FOR YOUR OWN PEOPLE. This is why both Putin and Orban win easily, while parties in the Sorosian lands never gain a majority.
Neither direction should be a surprise. The DUTY of a national leader is to defend his OWN nation, not to defend Goldman or Soros or Bezos. When a leader does his assigned DUTY, the nation appreciates his work and wants him to continue doing his work. A closed feedback loop, like a business serving its OWN customers instead of serving Goldman or Soros or Bezos.

Convective connection:
Absolute fact: Human status is permanent. If you're born with low status, nothing you can do will raise your status. You can buy status prostheses, but they don't fool anyone. If you're born with high status, nothing you can do will lower your status. You're free to do all sorts of evil without changing your status.
Corollary: Status is also a permanent property of human products. This is somewhat less absolute than human status because it's partly constrained by limits of cost and practicality. Within the boundaries, it doesn't matter which product is more efficient or easier to use or more advanced technology. The product with more buzz and higher status will win.
In other words,
Popularity is popular.

That encounter is with the risen Lord. “Look at my hands and my feet”, Jesus told the frightened disciples, “Touch me and see…” There is the encounter: Look at Christ. Touch Christ. See Christ. Not just with physical sight, but also with spiritual vision. Then love is born—and it is never boring!

And you still wonder why heterosexual males aren't in church on Sunday?

Convective thought: If you wanted to do a thorough survey of seat belt usage, you could get it from Youtube. About 80% of all personal 'vlogs' show a person sitting in a car, either driving or passengering. You can tell which is which by the direction of the shoulder belt. I don't recall seeing anyone without a shoulder belt.

On my morning walk I was noticing the common practice of building a carport in front of a garage. The extra stage is needed because the garage is permanently filled with stuff instead of cars, so the cars need a new shelter. A few houses have two-stage carports because the first carport is permanently occupied by a non-movable RV.
These carports could be called vestibules for cars.
Back in the 1920s most decent houses had vestibules or screened porches on every entrance, so you could leave wet coats or tools semi-outside and keep the true inside clean and warm.
Did anyone ever build a purposeful vestibule to keep the garage itself dry and warm and unpolluted? A sort of airlock to hold the car while it's warming up, or a place to do repairs and cleaning before storing the car in the clean garage?
Yes! Or at least it was suggested in this 1918 steamfitter's trade journal:

We, the Patriarchs: John X, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and all the East, Ignatius Aphrem II, Syrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and all the East, and Joseph Absi, Melkite-Greek Catholic Patriarch of Antioch, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, condemn and denounce the brutal aggression that took place this morning against our precious country Syria by the USA, France and the UK, under the allegations that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons. We raise our voices to affirm the following:
This brutal aggression is a clear violation of the international laws and the UN Charter, because it is an unjustified assault on a sovereign country, member of the UN.
It causes us great pain that this assault comes from powerful countries to which Syria did not cause any harm in any way.
The allegations of the USA and other countries that the Syrian army is using chemical weapons and that Syria is a country that owns and uses this kind of weapon, is a claim that is unjustified and unsupported by sufficient and clear evidence.
The timing of this unjustified aggression against Syria, when the independent International Commission for Inquiry was about to start its work in Syria, undermines of the work of this commission.
This brutal aggression destroys the chances for a peaceful political solution and leads to escalation and more complications.
This unjust aggression encourages the terrorist organizations and gives them momentum to continue in their terrorism.
We call upon the Security Council of the United Nations to play its natural role in bringing peace rather than contribute to escalation of wars.
We call upon all churches in the countries that participated in the aggression, to fulfill their Christian duties, according to the teachings of the Gospel, and condemn this aggression and to call their governments to commit to the protection of international peace.
We salute the courage, heroism and sacrifices of the Syrian Arab Army which courageously protects Syria and provide security for its people. We pray for the souls of the martyrs and the recovery of the wounded. We are confident that the army will not bow before the external or internal terrorist aggressions; they will continue to fight courageously against terrorism until every inch of the Syrian land is cleansed from terrorism. We, likewise, commend the brave stand of countries which are friendly to the Syria and its people.

I was going to say Nuff Said, but actually there's one relevant fact they omitted. Assad's regime, like Saddam's regime in Iraq, was secular, tolerant of Christians, and included Christians in the government. Our intended replacements for both regimes are genocidal toward Christians. Deepstate slaughters both Christians and Muslims.

If I was watching for signs of the Rapture or whatever it's called, I'd be looking for extremely ODD developments in the most "progressive" and "enlightened" parts of Europe. These ODD things are sudden reversions to the same actions that the "progressives" have just spent 50 years eliminating.
1. Zoos killing their own animals when there's no reason for it. Last year a Danish zoo killed some giraffes who weren't unhealthy or old. The giraffes could have been sold to other zoos, which is a perfectly common and profitable procedure. Zoos trade animals the way sports teams trade players. Now we have a Swedish zoo killing 500 lizards, again for no particular reason:
Until now, zoos have been the center of PETA-style animal "rights" and the center of "endangered" species nonsense. But even before PETA, preservation was always the basic mission of zoos, because their existence depended on the survival of their animals. These pointless killings violate the original purpose as well as the newer purpose.
2. The anti-circumcision movement in those same countries. I can't figure this out at all. Circumcision simply makes a body part easier to clean and maintain. That's why it was included in Natural Law along with rules about diet and menstruation. Religions have sacralized the rules, but the rules were just experimentally determined helpers for survival. This anti movement is spreading especially in Germany, where other movements with a similar flavor would be instantly and harshly punished. The people who are pushing this movement are ALSO the same people who push trans surgery, and harshly punish people who fail to use the correct pronouns. Well, which is it? Surgery on private parts is MANDATORY or surgery on private parts is FORBIDDEN? It's both, and if you don't know which is which at the current picosecond, Room 101.

Via RT:France’s Emmanuel Macron said he considers himself an equal to Russia’s Vladimir Putin and that the strike on Syria was meant to show he was “part of this,” journalists who interviewed the French leader have revealed.
Constant: Leaders are always driven by ego and macho and ambition and male competition. True of all social mammals, and especially true of humans.
Variable: Before the current era of maximum bubbliness, top leaders understood that they shouldn't openly talk about their short dicks. They should attempt to channel their sex drive into some kind of useful service.
This was the basic bargain of civilization. Natural Law made the bargain explicit and contractual.
Natural Law and civilization have vanished from the Sorosian side of the world, so top leaders don't even KNOW or CARE that the followers might find them absurd and repellent. They don't KNOW that the balanced contract formerly kept things sane.

Listening to the Robust Debate in Parliament on the question of whether Parliament should be allowed to have a Robust Debate about starting wars.
As always with Robust Debates, there is no debate because there is only one side. A Robust Debate is an auction. All participants are bidding up the budget and strength of evil.
Nobody is asking the simple basic question about this specific war.
How does it serve British interests to attack Syria, which never attacked Britain? What do we gain from bombing a country that wasn't even bothering us?
Syria's allies are also innocent in terms of major conflicts. Russia never attacked Britain. Persia never attacked Britain. Turkey and Britain have been on opposite sides in most wars, but there was only one direct conflict, in which Britain was the aggressor.
What did ANYONE hope to gain from starting this war? There was never a goal except raw evil and crime and chaos. Israel wanted to destabilize Assad because Israel loves chaos just as much as we do. So we obeyed Bibi and committed mass murder to please him.
It's a monstrous pile of psychopathic genocidists, shouting the names of countries and working together to obliterate the named target. Satan's auction.

Treating an old problem as a brand-new problem, or treating a pre-existing thing as a brand-new thing, are common variants on the Shared Lie. We have a special epidemic of these variants lately, along with the constant daily barrage of RUSSIAN_HACKING Shared Lies and the TWO separate RUSSIAN_POISON_GAS Shared Lies.
1. We started the Syrian war in 2013, and we've been running one side of it for 5 years. Despite that, everyone is treating our latest missile attack as "starting a war". We're discussing what will happen "after" we "start a war" in Syria.
2. There has been a partial wall on the Mexican border for decades. Trump proposed to "build the wall" as a slogan, but he understood that we really need to FINISH the wall, not START the wall. Despite that, everyone is discussing the consequences of "building a wall", without even noticing that it's there.
3. China has been running a full-scale Trade War against us for 30 years. We surrendered and collaborated with the enemy immediately and permanently. Despite that, Trump's weak little first countermove is treated by everyone as Starting A Trade War, and everyone discusses the HORRIBLE CONSEQUENCES of Starting A Trade War.
4. Every year Congress does tax "reform" and tax "simplification", which always leads to infinitely greater complexity and infinitely more loopholes. Every year Congress tells us that you can now fill out your taxes on a postcard. In fact about half of all taxpayers ALREADY do that. If you have plain old wages and use the standard deduction, IRS already knows your income, and you can ask them to figure the taxes for you and pay the refund or bill you for the underpay. This has been true for at least two decades. Despite that, Trump was talking to some Repooflican fuckheads this week and made the same old postcard promise. "Now, thanks to my efforts, you can just send in the postcard." Repooflicans know better. Repoofs NEVER take the standard deduction, because the SINGLE SOLE TOTAL PURPOSE of a Repoof's life is to pay ZERO TAX ZERO TAX ZERO TAX. Repoofs will spend several million dollars on accountants and lawyers to GUARANTEE that they pay exactly ZERO TAX ZERO TAX ZERO TAX to the government. Tax evasion is a HOLY MISSION for Repoofs.

I noticed this item in RealClearScience:
I'm a sucker for articles on that subject, so clicked on it and ended up here:
Right! On the dot! The cross IS the crux of the conflict!
The link isn't accidental; the page source shows that the Google search is in the href.
I suppose the editor of RCS was looking up the word and forgot to re-copy the actual article link. It's nice to know that RCS is edited by illiterates.
Incidentally, the article itself is long, thorough, and informative. I learned a few things I didn't know before, so it was worth the trouble.

Random thought while reading about a local house fire.
Why not connect the smoke detector to an automatic door opener? Pop the entrance door open with solenoids and released springs, like an inverse mousetrap.
Clearly a terrible idea for tall buildings, where it would accentuate the stack effect.
But in a small house or mobile home, it would bring in fresh air and make the exit easier to find and use for both residents and rescuers. The air might help to feed the fire, but it would also allow more breathing time.
Seems so obvious that there must be a reason why it's not done. If so, I can't see the reason.
= = = = =
Later: Speaking of dubious fire suppression ideas.... The latest item at Kansas State Hist Soc is a fire grenade:
Description:
Sealed with cork and cement and still contains liquid. Glass fire grenades were made between about 1870 and 1910. They were designed to be thrown directly into the fire, breaking the glass and releasing the firefighting chemical within.
According to other sources the chemical was carbon tet.
I normally prefer old inventions over new, but I'll make an exception in this case. On the other hand, the liquid is still there 100 years later, while modern gas-pressurized extinguishers lose their force in 10 years.

I don't understand either side of this monstrous game. It happened with Deepstate and Nixon, and it's happening the same way with Deepstate and Trump.
Deepstate's actions: HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE. Spew gigatons of volcanic insults on NixonTrump before the election, during the term, and after the term. No change. Constant maximum spew, constant 999 dB sonic boom of evil.
NixonTrump's actions: OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY OBEY. Do everything Deepstate wants and more and more and more and more and more. Perfect perpetual loyalty.
= = = = =
Nixon gave Deepstate EVERYTHING THEY DREAMED OF and more and more and more and more. All of the sacraments of the Tribe were firmly planted in government by Nixon. He sacrificed the gold standard to support Israel, thus opening the door for Wall Street to exterminate the real-value economy. He expanded the Vietnam war dramatically and didn't pull out until we had to make a desperate last-minute retreat. He connected with China, opening the door for offshoring our industries. He gave the Tribe abortion on demand, "negative income tax", affirmative action, forced busing, and the biggest dreamiest gift of all, Environmentalism. All of these tools helped the Tribe to replace the real-value economy by total abstract debtism.
We have a shorter record for Trump, but so far he has acted in the same direction. Infinite debt, infinite war, zero tax. Infinite riches for Wall Street, suicide and slaughter for Deplorables. Everything for Israel ... and everything for Saudi, which is a later addition to Deepstate.
I don't understand.
= = = = =
Normal humans function by reward and punishment. Skinner.
On the normal master side:
When the master wants the slave to perform well, the master uses carrots and sticks. Threats of blackmail and volcanic insult eruptions if the "president" disobeys, public praise and closing the blackmail file if the "president" obeys.
On the normal slave side:
The slave obeys to remove the threat and to gain rewards. If the master continues to add more threats AFTER the slave gives all of his loyalty and work, the slave REBELS or GIVES UP. When you have nothing to lose, your soul breaks and you lose everything.
= = = = =
In the NixonTrump situation, neither side is behaving normally. The master continues pulling out more blackmail files WHILE the slave is performing perfectly, and offers no hint of throttling the volcano.
Even if we assume that NixonTrump is a pre-staged puppet who chose from the start to serve the masters, the motivation doesn't make sense. Why would you choose to sacrifice everything for infinite pain and zero gain?
Biggest puzzle: Why does NixonTrump continue to emit rebellious noises even after EVERYONE has realized he's a puppet?
I don't understand.

Getting ready for grocery trip, I was sorting the bills in my wallet so I could use up the smaller stuff first. Usually the wallet holds one or two 20s and a pile of 1s. This time it contained 20, 10, 5, and a pile of 1s.
10s and 5s aren't as common, so I noticed something that normally doesn't stand out. The green side of 20, 10 and 5 is all columnar. Each has a building in Greek temple style. The image of columns suggests countable digits like an abacus or a memory register.... BUT the columns are inversely correlated to the denomination. The 20 has 4 columns, the 10 has 8 columns, and the 5 has 12 columns.
The relationship isn't linear, so it can't be properly extended. Probably a good thing, since a linear relationship would require fractional (broken) or negative (upside-down) columns on larger bills.
Pennies and nickels also have columnar buildings on their back sides, and again the columns are inversely correlated to the value. But other coins have other stuff, so again there's no possibility of writing a formula.

Allowing for the development and use of fully automated lethal weapons systems would make warfare even more inhumane and undermine efforts to achieve peace through dialogue, not an arms race, a Vatican representative said.
“A world in which autonomous systems are left to manage, rigidly or randomly, fundamental questions related to the lives of human beings and nations, would lead us imperceptibly to dehumanisation and to a weakening of the bonds of a true and lasting fraternity of the human family,” Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic told a group of experts at the United Nations in Geneva.

In the first fucking place, peace NEVER happens through "dialogue". Peace happens when aggressors and bullies understand through HARD LETHAL EXPERIENCE that their aggression is FUTILE, that their aggression will LEAD TO INSTANT DESTRUCTION.
USA STRONG's aggression was partly restrained from 1946 through 1989 because we knew Russia would answer our aggression FAST AND HARD. After we LBO'd Russia for our boss Soros in 1989, Russia became weak and suicidal, just like the corporations and Deplorables who suffer the same fate here.
Putin has unraveled the LBO and restored Russia to independence, but we still haven't figured it out. We need a HARD LETHAL LESSON.
I'd suggest the following result would be a sufficient lesson:
= = = = =
In the second fucking place, autonomous systems ALREADY manage rigidly and randomly on the Sorosian side of the world. Humanoid entities are running Deepstate, but their intelligence is similar in form and capacity to an early PC. Their programming is simple.

Would more complex programming achieve different results? No, because the programmers would still be working for the same bosses.
GIGO. Genocide in, Genocide out.
Just for fun, here's a 'working' version of the program.

The study of 600,000 drinkers estimated that having 10 to 15 alcoholic drinks every week could shorten a person's life by between one and two years. And they warned that people who drink more than 18 drinks a week could lose four to five years of their lives.

For several decades the Official Experts have been focusing EXCLUSIVELY on the sins of tobacco, while telling us of the supposed benefits of wine.
The statistical mean, as always, blurs the important difference between heavy users.
When you use tobacco steadily and heavily, you'll lose about 5 years but you'll keep your intelligence and gain mental stability. You may avoid suicide.
When you use alcohol steadily and heavily, you'll lose about 20 years, and your brain will lose its judgment and intelligence long before you die. You're more likely to commit suicide, and you're VASTLY more likely to kill other people by violence or accident.
The important distinction is what happens BEFORE you die.
= = = = =
From a Natural Law viewpoint the same distinction shows up.
There are about a dozen 'traditional' drugs that have been used for thousands of years by large numbers of people. Coffee, alcohol, tea, tobacco, qat, marijuana, betel nuts.
These drugs are 'traditional' because the people that use them survive. Perhaps they survive better than drug-free people, or perhaps worse, but in either case they don't die FAST. Otherwise the tradition would have died with the users.
Newer drugs like meth are not 'traditional' because they kill fast. If any group in the past had been addicted to concentrated uppers, we wouldn't know about it because they wouldn't have left any sort of record.
Among the traditionals, alcohol is singled out for disapproval. The writers of the Old Testament were familiar with alcohol and various forms of tea, and probably qat. They warned against alcohol. Islam sacralized coffee and prohibited alcohol. The old American tribes sacralized tobacco and restricted alcohol to extremely narrow sacred uses.
= = = = =
Sidenote on Injuns: Modern archeologists agree that Injuns knew about alcohol before Euro tribes invaded, and that Injuns were smart enough and civilized enough to avoid it. When your agriculture and trade are based on corn, you're going to have lots of corn likker around whether you want it or not. Corn ferments enthusiastically. Injuns figured out that corn likker was bad and decided to avoid it.
When the Euros picked up corn as a crop, we also had lots of corn likker around, but we were too dumb and shallow and uncultured to avoid it. We based our agriculture and trade on the likker instead of the corn, and we're STILL DOING IT. See ethanol.
If you're going to talk about one race "giving alcohol" to the other, it would make more sense to treat corn likker as the well-deserved Injun revenge on the Euros.
Later on, some tribes succumbed to alcohol, but NOT because they suddenly encountered alcohol for the first time. The relevant variable here is culture, not whiskey. We didn't give them alcohol, we stole their culture.

Following on last week's Bravo for Austria.
The concept of NEUTRALITY is entirely alien and unfamiliar in modern times. It was familiar and desirable to Americans in the '30s. We were officially NEUTRAL until we were ACTUALLY ATTACKED by the Japs. As the Krauts and Japs were clearly moving closer to attacking us, we were preparing and organizing our defenses, but we were NOT ATTACKING ANYONE.
You can get a strong sense of how NEUTRALITY felt and sounded by listening to CBS news in '39. Elmer Davis gave the details of the mounting war in Europe and Asia, but he never took sides. He treated the claims of both sides equally. When evidence disproved a Brit claim, he gave the evidence. When evidence disproved a Kraut claim, he gave the evidence.
This section of Archive.org includes a wide selection of Davis and other newscasters.
This 15 minute clip from Dec '39 is especially relevant. Stalin was briefly allied with Germany, and was briefly acting like Krauts or modern Americans. Russia was aggressively invading Finland to force regime change.
We were unhappy with Russia for its alliance with Krauts, but we didn't do anything in response because Russia was NOT ATTACKING US. Therefore we DIDN'T NEED TO RESPOND. IT WAS NONE OF OUR FUCKING BUSINESS.
Sane and moral behavior is the same for individuals or nations. 1. Don't start a fight. 2. Defend yourself when you are actually attacked.
Now we have perfectly reversed the rules of sanity and morality. We only attack countries that HAVEN'T attacked us. We collaborate with countries that HAVE attacked us, like Britain and Japan and Germany and Saudi.

Well, President Clinton has gone ahead and launched more airstrikes, to prove how crazy we are.
The dyslogic of the Sorosian lands surpasses all previously known or imagined forms of evil.
Dyssyllogism:
Premise 1. We are infinitely crazy.
Premise 2. We have monstrous evil delusions.
Therefore: YOU must die.
= = = = =
Slightly later thought: No, it's not crazy at all, it's just criminal in the strictest sense. As always we made a false accusation, and as always the evidence at the scene showed that our accusation is false. Like the classic bad cop, we just burn down the location so nobody can look for evidence.
It's the standard FBI operating manual scaled up to nations. Pick a Deplorable who fits our "profile" for heretics. Create lots of fake "evidence" and charges. Trap him into a situation where he can be seen as "resisting" or "lying to the FBI". Kill him. Burn his "compound" to eliminate all evidence.

An illuminating brief article on the Italian election by Enrico Verga.
As with the Catalunyan "independence" movement, it turns out that the "independent" Five Stars movement is funded by Soros. And as expected from a Sorosian agent provocateur, Five Stars is immediately breaking all of its promises and enthusiastically refilling the swamp.
Sounds like the honest nationalist group is Lega Nord, which has a localist base and seems to be holding onto its purposes.

Youtube slopped me over into this when I was looking for some African Anglican choral music. This isn't Anglican and it isn't choral, and it's the least likely background and accompaniment you could imagine. But wait until he starts singing.......
Jesus!

Another worm puzzle.
In the morning after a rainy night, worms are all over the street but NOT on the sidewalks.
Thinking in linear human form, this makes no sense. The sidewalks are bone-dry and the street is still damp from rain running in the gutter. The sidewalks are accessible to a much larger expanse of grass on two sides, and the street is only accessible to the narrow 'parking' strip on one side.
Linear humans would think the goal is MAXIMUM DRY, and the greater expanse of soil should yield the larger number of worms.
Obviously the worms have a more tanh-style goal. All senses are two-ended. Worms don't want to drown, and they don't want to dessicate. They want to be DAMP, and the street near the curb is DAMP.
One possible exception that might test the rule: Some sections of sidewalk are damp because of gathered pine needles that retain moisture by surface tension. Still no worms.
Do the worms know from generationally acquired experience that the street is the place to go?
= = = = =
Update next day: This morning I walked during a moderate rain after an earlier burst of heavy rain. The streets are wet, with 1/2 inch of water in low spots, and the sidewalks are thoroughly damp but without standing water. The rule still holds. Lots of worms on the street, zero on the sidewalks. Improves the case for learned choices.

Now that the Skripals are out of hospital, the UK dysgovernment has planted a purely Stalinist anathema on them.
"They are not normal. They are permanently damaged by the poison."
Now anything the Skripals say can be automatically dismissed as the ravings of unfortunate retards.
The nature of this warning tells us what really happened.
The Skripals were dangerously close to saying something harmful. MI6 administered some kind of mind-altering drug to ruin their rationality so their revelations can be treated as ravings. Or cheaper and easier, just sedated them for a few weeks without altering anything.
CIA formerly used LSD for this trick, and always blames Russia.
Reprinting an Aberree-related item:= = = = = START REPRINT:
A letter in the Nov 1955 Aberree mentions something written in another para-Hubbard journal:
Transcribing the relevant text: The vague reference to a 'person or persons unknown' feeding insanity-producing drugs, especially that tidbit of the psychiatrist of 'russian origin'...
Since this is a vague reference to a vague reference, it's hard to place in context, but the date and flavor lead me to think that rumors of MKULTRA were circulating in offbeat parts of the culture. MKULTRA was going strong in late '55. The 'russian origin' strengthens the CIA connection since CIA has ALWAYS attributed its demonic evil to 'russian origin'.
= = = = = END REPRINT.

Nice contrast between two articles with a similar style. One supports evil, the other opposes evil.
= = = = =
First:This article on philosophy tries to defend the need for the discipline with two questions. (1) Why do we need philosophy? (2) Since we need it, why is philosophy so fucking useless?
Why do we need philosophy?

Some propose that the whole idea of making progress toward the truth gets philosophy wrong. Rather, philosophy’s job is to help us respond effectively to social and political issues, such as those involving race, gender or inequality, or to deepen the gravitas of our culture, or to help us achieve the examined life. Consider the latter time-honoured goal, for example. If this is what philosophy is for, then it makes progress one person at a time, and can do so even if people successively grapple with much the same questions and answers, with no answers ever designated as the ‘right’ ones.

He's right about the examined life, but misses the whole point with the crap about Sorosian big questions. If philosophy served any purpose at all, it would have ALREADY told us that Sorosian questions are genocidal violent psychotic lunacy, explicitly designed to obliterate civilization. We would ALREADY eliminate such questions from discussion, and we would shoot monsters who try to "Confront us" with "Robust Debate" and "National Conversations" to advance genocide. Earlier philosophers did occasionally examine whether fashionable questions are good questions instead of helping the monsters to commit genocide more efficiently.
Why philosophy hasn't accomplished anything yet:

Reflection on deep time would instead prod us to think more deeply about whether our very early stage of intellectual development might not also exhibit radical developmental immaturity – and to notice the distinctive and accessible sort of progress that is appropriate to such immaturity.

He spends the rest of the article documenting the supposed immaturity of the discipline and begging for more workforce and funding to get past the immature stage. Parkinson as always.
Ratshit. You fuckers have been consuming money and academic space for 1000 years. Even then, the major questions had already been settled by Aristotle and Confucius and others. Billy Ockham answered the remaining questions and you've only SUBTRACTED from Aristotle and Ockham since then. Even Billy didn't manage to destroy the false premises of the Inquisition in its "early stages", and modern paid philosophers are IMPROVING THE EFFICIENCY of the modern Inquisition. We shouldn't be paying anyone for this evil job.
= = = = =
Second:This article is a COMPLETE takedown of the blockchain myth. The author performs a REAL PHILOSOPHICAL SERVICE, examining step by step whether the questions that Bitcoin supposedly answers are even questions that need an answer. Obviously they aren't, because we already have good solutions for the problems. He shows how blockchain is a WORSE solution for each of these problems.

You actually see it over and over again. Blockchain systems are supposed to be more trustworthy, but in fact they are the least trustworthy systems in the world. Today, in less than a decade, three successive top bitcoin exchanges have been hacked, another is accused of insider trading, the demonstration-project DAO smart contract got drained, crypto price swings are ten times those of the world’s most mismanaged currencies, and bitcoin, the “killer app” of crypto transparency, is almost certainly artificially propped up by fake transactions involving billions of literally imaginary dollars.

He doesn't bother to explain why the fraud was perpetrated because it's blatantly obvious. NSA created Bitcoin to perform three of NSA's functions at once. (1) Encourage dissidents and criminals to run their transactions through NSA instead of using untraceable paper currency and unmonitorable handshake contracts. (2) Steal free computing service from the "miners" to solve NSA's cryptographic equations. (3) Make money by frontrunning transactions because NSA has inside knowledge of the transactions.

Do you now understand what you have done? No, you do not.
Everywhere you go, everything you touch, you leave behind only chaos. You try to fish in those murky waters, but the only thing you catch is mutants.
We’re not particularly keen to be friends with you. We’re not begging you for friendship. We want normal, civilized relations – which you arrogantly refuse, disregarding basic courtesy.

The leftists who are pushing hard for nuclear war to obliterate the world haven't really thought about the question.
Even if you delusionally believe that the war would only destroy Russia (because magic) you're still not following your own traditions.
The usual leftists, both secular and mainline "Christian", have a firm tradition about war. All wars branded by a Democrat president are good. All wars branded by a Repooflican president are bad. Vietnam was a good war when it was labeled with the LBJ brand, and IMMEDIATELY became a bad war when Nixon bought it.
In the transition from Bush to Obama, the tradition held firm. Iraq and Afghanistan were bad wars because Bush started them, but became good wars when Obama acquired the trademark. Ukraine and Syria and Libya are good wars because Hillary owns the copyright.
Bombing Russia should be a HORRIBLE war because it would be Trump's war from the start. No transition involved. Purely Trump brand. There's no way around it, unless you're certain that you can eliminate both Trump and Pence before you push the button.
Do you really want to be associated with a nuclear Armageddon that will be officially run by Trump, who is even worse than Nixon in your book?

Yes. It's ALWAYS possible to write a strictly objective story, though you may have to leave out some dubious parts. Even BBC is capable of objectivity sometimes. I've noted their Travel department's wonderfully objective pieces about Oklahoma, which I can verify from direct knowledge.
Today their coverage of the Hungarian election is precisely neutral. None of the words or phrases include hidden assumptions or hidden biases. Gold standard of objectivity. Especially dramatic since Orban is the best and strongest opponent of BBC's demonic alien monsterbosses Soros and Juncker, so the writer had to try SERIOUSLY HARD to reach this standard.
Compare with France24's coverage, which appears neutral but contains lots of loaded words and unstated assumptions about the inherent necessity and goodness of Sorosian genocide.
Aside from these, the usual suspects are pouring out the usual volcanic spew of vile filthy bigotry against Orban and against sane human beings.
One not-quite-usual suspect has done a beautiful job of confessing and convicting itself. The Intercept, which started out a few years ago with a pretty good fake show of independence, has gradually revealed itself to be just another branch of CIA/NSA/CNN/MSNBC/FOX/NYTIMES/ETC. Today's article on the election is the best and clearest evidence of pure demonic Sorosian omnicide at the Intercept.
Later: Orban wins, which isn't a surprise. When given a real choice, people will always pick a candidate who has PROVED his competence and sanity. Performance counts.

At their heart, political campaigns are no different than any other organization: they need to raise revenues and then spend it to meet their objectives. Organizations are responsive to who pays them, and therefore, the only way to connect politics back to the everyday lives of people is to connect more pocketbooks of voters directly into the revenue model of DC.

This sort of proposal never works. The reformers miss two distinct and separate facts.
1. Big money always funds "both" "parties" because "both" "parties" are the same side. Big corporations understand how Deepstate works, and ESPECIALLY understand how Symmetrical Scapegoating works. Pay "both" "sides" to make meaningless noises at each other. Simultaneously pay "both" "sides" to do the same job. If one "side" is weak at the moment, the "other" "side" will be strong. Job gets done. (This is IDENTICAL to the neural use of paired organs and paired hemispheres! Contralateral and ipsilateral innervation insures that you always have a backup.)
2. These reformers understand the pay side of the pay for value problem but don't understand the value side.
They understand that nobody is paying Deepstate for sanity and non-intervention, so sanity and non-intervention don't happen.
The value side is harder to see because USA STRONG has been ruined since 1920 by the idiotic "Good Government" culture. We have decided that a direct retail connection with politicians is "corruption". We don't like to see citizens paying for pothole repair on their street, or parents paying for their own school. Everything must be handled at the TOP level, and everyone must pay for everything in a perfectly fungible way.
Fungibility is the problem, not the solution. When you KNOW WHAT YOU'RE PAYING FOR, and when you GET WHAT YOU'RE PAYING FOR, politics works. That's real democracy.
So the abovementioned reformers won't achieve anything unless they can break down the universal-funding model to some extent. There are a few basic tasks that must be universal, at least as a floor to insure survival. But even in those tasks, there must be room for paying more to get more. We've applied the universality rule so strictly that we've lost all FEEDBACK.
Universality requires all functions to be controlled by one central lever. The biggest corporations have the power and money to grab the single lever, so they control all functions. With a modular system there is no single lever. Each city or school or neighborhood has levers and knobs for its own local functions, and the local citizens or parents can prevent outsiders like Bloomberg from grabbing hold of the lever. In software this requires a compiler that jealously guards private variables from global interference. At one time we had some words in our compiler (the 10th amendment) which were meant to perform this function, but Genocidal Madman Lincoln, loyally serving NYC, wiped out the compiler along with 1/6 of the people in the country. NYC never allows non-NYC control or possession. Everything must be owned and controlled by NYC.

The demons are running up the usual "ethics" "charges" against Pruitt. He's the last non-Deepstate holdout in Trump's cabinet, and he has managed to make a few real changes in the right direction. Now the fake "news" is full of horrible scandals like traveling at government expense with a government-paid security detail. All government officials do that. Everyone knows that all government officials do that. It's universal and normal and REQUIRED. But when the Wrong Official does it, we hear about it on the fake "news".
I'm surprised that Pruitt held on so long, and surprised that the demons didn't kick him out a year ago along with the other non-Deepstaters. Now the real Trump can undo the changes in regulations that were implemented by the fake "Trump" scampaign.
Later: The Weather Bureau's twitter seems to be frontrunning the undo, with a sudden outpouring of screechyhymns to Gaia. They know what's going to happen.

Watching the Orthodox Easter service on RT. Excellent narrators, giving the history of Christianity and the history of Russia while describing the action. I might prefer silence during the music, but the narration is so deeply informative that it's worth the slight loss.
The difference between Orthodox and Rome is clear. Papal Rome continued the globalist imperial tradition of pagan Rome. Orthodoxy grew locally in each ethnic group, with variations that continue today.
Camera shows the audience often. Young and old, male and female. You can tell who attends church regularly and who shows up on Easter. The regulars know the rhythm, and the one-timers are trying to follow along without much success.
The older folks in the audience have lived through the crucifixion of Soviet Russia by Soros, the Soros-Yeltsin tomb, and the resurrection of Orthodox Russia by Putin. Many of the older folks died in the Soros tomb.
Irrelevant and irreverent sidenote: There'a a lot of candle action around the altar. The priests are swinging LONG candles, including three-candle combos representing the trinity. Those candles and holders are remarkably sturdy. No ordinary candle would stay intact. Must be a specialized church guild of candle engineers. ... Aha. A closeup shows part of the secret. The trinity candles are held in a Ж shape by plain old rubber bands!

In the neurology courseware I'm working on, there's a lot of discussion about contralateral vs ipsilateral innervation. Got me thinking about the topic, so I noticed something.
When I get dressed, my upper and lower parts are contralateral. On upper-body items (t-shirt, shirt, coat, gloves) the right arm goes in first. On lower-body items (underpants, pants, socks, shoes) the left leg goes in first.
I'm left-handed and generally left-dominant, so why does the upper body dress the other way? This doesn't correspond to the ipsi and contra of the nerves; all of the crossovers for arms and legs work the same way. Left hemisphere controls all of the right side below the neck, right hemisphere controls all of the left side below the neck.
Undressing is less consistent, because most things come off 'vertically', not one side first.
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Good rain yesterday, lots of earthworms on the street today. Worms are a pretty good meter for soil health. The street in front of the organic ex-hippie's garden is PACKED with worms. The street in front of Hank Hill's over-chemicalized precisely trimmed green carpet is perfectly wormless. Ordinary semi-maintained lawns (like mine) are in between.
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Time to give up reading quora.com. It was sort of interesting for a while, but it's classically addictive. Just enough positive to keep you locked in, then it slaps you down with a GOTCHA, then you come back hoping for more positive to cure the GOTCHA. I don't need that sort of input. Enough. Done.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg says that while Facebook doesn't sell or give away its users' information (it just allows third party apps to do that), the company still "depends on your data," and if users wanted to completely opt out of all of the platform's data-driven advertising, they would have to pay for it.

What's shocking? If you want to be the customer, pay. If you want to be the product, don't pay.
Better question: Will FB actually treat you differently when you do pay? I'd say the chance is somewhere between 0.00000% and 0.00000000000000000%. Just like the fake "turnoff" controls in Windows 10, the "turnoff" or "opt-out" will be fake. You'll pay for the illusion of turning a switch, but there are no wires connected to the switch.

I've already pointed out that Assange brought this situation on himself by valuing pure abstractions like "rights" instead of putting his DUTY first. I've also pointed out that he's taking the wrong side, working for EU and Soros.
Now that his communication is blocked, he's still stuck with purity and perfectionism. His "rights" are being "violated", so he expects the "rights" adjudicators like UN and EU to solve the "violation".
If you start instead with the NEED to perform your particular DUTY, you will find ways to make it happen. Digital communication via Twitter is NOT the only way to get a message out. Before Twitter was founded in 2006, it's barely conceivable that primitive Neanderthal Negative Externalities might have found clumsy ways to express simple crude simian zero-IQ messages by grunting and throwing rocks.
Less snottily, Assange seems to be relying on tech-monster types who only know how to communicate digitally THROUGH NSA. If you're seriously INDEPENDENT, you don't want to communicate THROUGH NSA in the first fucking place.
There are all sorts of mechanical and analog ways to get a message out of an embassy compound in a big city, especially when you have a cult following of underground-minded people willing to help.
Think literal underground. Morse. Faucets. Carrier rats.
I've probably spoiled those particular channels by mentioning them, but a smart ANALOG-MINDED spy can think of others. There are many ways to send an active message by varying passive impedances.

Austria seeks to maintain its neutrality and be a mediator for other nations, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said, explaining the decision not to join the ‘diplomat expulsion’ brigade, triggered by the UK’s accusations against Russia.
Vienna did not join the trend to expel Russian diplomats, as the country wants to remain the “bridge building” platform where “hundreds of diplomats hold talks” on a daily basis, Kurz said. The Chancellor has also noted that Austria was among the one third of EU countries which did not take hostile actions against Moscow over the Skripal case allegations.
“We have good relations with Russia now. We are a neutral country and home to the headquarters of many international organizations such as the UN and OSCE; hundreds of diplomats come here to have talks on neutral ground. That’s why we can develop the role of a bridge between nations.”

Neutrality was a meaningful choice in Euro-based wars up through WW2. In fact USA was firmly neutral between WW1 and WW2. Our government and culture preached and practiced non-intervention. After the invasion of Poland in Sept 39, the government tried to steer away from official neutrality so we could supply weapons to Britain more openly, but Congress refused.
A country that chose neutrality had to be serious about maintaining it. No support or permission for either belligerent side. Saying the word wasn't enough. If you faked neutrality, like Sweden in WW2, you were fair game for attacks.
After WW2 the resurgence of USA STRONG Globalism eradicated the concept.
Now Kurz is bringing it back in an explicit way, which makes him the most creative and innovative leader in the world. Bravo!
Polistra and friends salute the white UNMARKED flag of neutrality!

A good example of the old NRA rule....
Got an email just now from nsif.org.uk, a non-profit that I had supported with a BIG contribution a few years ago. They're developing a new and promising technique of curing paralysis, and they weren't getting government funding. I was convinced of the validity of their science, so I contributed, and I appreciate** getting their infrequent progress reports.
Today's email:

As you may know, the data protection laws in the UK are changing and we want to make sure we have your permission to keep receiving email updates from us. If we don't hear from you, we'll sadly need to remove you from our database so please stay in touch, we need your continued support.
It will only take a moment to say yes - all you need to do is hit the button below!

AOL wouldn't allow the automatic response button, so I fetched the source, disassembled the href, and manually composed the precisely correct response mail to say YES. I presume the form is legally required.
Checking the "new data protection laws", I find they were underway even BEFORE Facebook violated its pact with Satan by allowing one byte of data to be used for purposes that might possibly be less than 100.0000% Satanic. This BBC feature on the laws was in May 2017, when Facebook was still certifiably 100.0000% demonic. I guess EU was trying to do preventative inquisition, sort of like the tyrannical equivalent of "wellness counseling."
At any rate, this email illustrates the INEVITABLE EFFECT of such laws. NSIF is a strictly legitimate and registered charity, doing everything the legit way. They made a point of asking for a response. The recipient has to do a little bit of work to maintain the legitimacy. AOL tried to protect me from this "security threat", but I know the charity is both legitimate and useful, so I did EXTRA work to get past the nanny.
Will any ILLEGITIMATE SCAM bother with these complicated steps? Not on your fucking life. They will use a trick to insure that you respond ACCIDENTALLY without even knowing it.
WHEN COMMUNICATION IS OUTLAWED, ONLY OUTLAWS WILL COMMUNICATE.
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** Why do I appreciate them? Because they thanked me personally, non-automatically, for my big contribution. This is extremely basic salesmanship, but too many websites and organizations still haven't figured it out. If you want people to continue contributing, you need to get personal.

Now that I've switched from Windows 7 to Microsoft Malware 10, then back to Windows 7, I have a better idea of the absolute horror of Microsoft Malware 10.
A list of things I've noticed with relief and pleasure on the trip back to normal WORKABLE FUNCTIONAL COMPUTING.
This is a pretty good constants and variables comparison because the new and old computers are similar Dell Inspiron types, and all of my programs are the same in both cases. I'm using Firefox 56 on both. Only the Windows version is different. (Actually the CPU comparison should FAVOR 10, because the newer computer with 10 has about twice the CPU speed.)
Overall, EVERYTHING is faster and smoother in 7, by a factor ranging from 3 to infinity. (Infinity because some things can't be done at all in 10.)
Above and beyond all the details: The computer is MINE again. The disk is active ONLY when the computer is doing something that I ordered it to do. Starting a program, saving a file, scanning for viruses. All manual, all under MY command. In Malware 10 the disk is grinding ALL THE TIME and the CPU is 100% occupied ALL THE TIME. Half of its effort is spying on me and the other half is updating its capacity to spy on me. Occasionally it generously offers me one or two CPU flops, so I can do something worth spying on.
This is a global vs local distinction in the purest sense. Originally the desktop computer was a LOCALIST triumph over the GLOBALIST world of mainframes and terminals. As soon as the desktop got popular, the globalists started working on ways to re-globalize. Malware 10 is the FINAL SOLUTION in their pogrom.
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Online:
Logins: In 10, logins on websites can take two minutes for no obvious reason, and often fail entirely when something goes out of sync. In 7, the process takes a few seconds and only fails when I mistype a password.
Youtube: 10 has delayed sound on some but not all clips. It's not an echo, more like a 'canon' or fugue where the second layer starts 10 seconds later, then the third layer starts 10 seconds later, ad infinitum.
Non-Youtube videos: On 10 the video falls behind steadily, sounding like Autotune "music", then gives up after about one minute. Many videos refuse to play at all.
Non-video graphics: On 7 the radar display at Wunderground takes two seconds to fill in. On Malware 10 the same display takes two minutes. I can go to the kitchen and fetch a cup of coffee before it's done.
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Offline:
Screen-saver: In 7 you just wiggle the mouse to get the screen back. In 10 you need to sign in with a password like an hourly employee punching in with his key card.
PDFs: When I view a PDF from my usual dual-pane Norton Commander, 10 takes an extra minute as always, then makes me click through a mysterious 'security' notice, telling me that I'm opening a PDF from my usual dual-pane Norton Commander, which I already know because I'm opening a PDF from my usual dual-pane Norton Commander.
Recent files menu in file-open: BIG loss in 10, but sort of hard to describe unless you've been using it in previous versions. This list is a REAL helper for workflow. The recent list was well-planned in 7, focusing on the files and folders you need. The new version in 10 does show some recent stuff, but it's disorganized and unusable. (I suppose a UI/UX expert could explain the distinction better; I just know that it helps in 7 and doesn't help in 10.)
PYTHON: Important difference, and not listed in the usual critiques of Malware 10. I use a lot of homemade Py in building courseware. Setting up animations, processing images and sound and text, and converting the output of my nice logical authoring system to the bizarre hyper-hyper-redundant garbagetrashcrapshitpile of HTML/SVG/CSS/JS needed for "modern" web shit. Python is never as fast as compiled programs, but it's consistently 5 times slower in 10. Processing my usual audio files takes about one minute per file in 7, and at least 5 minutes in 10. I don't know how MS manages this degree of slowness; must be running the Py through a dozen layers of cumulative emulation. Emucumulation?
In 10 every screen action fills in from top to bottom in a measurable amount of time. Some of these top-to-bottoms can take 30 seconds when ANYTHING else is going on. All are instant in 7. Again it seems like 10 is running everything through several layers of virtual emulation. Or else each step is sent to MS for documentation of heresy, then sent back after personal inspection by MS inquisitors.
Start button in 10 leads to a big disorganized panel of ADVERTISEMENTS for mysterious things that are mostly absent. You have to search to find the mysterious symbols for the Control Panel or Shutdown. Start button in 7 leads to a simple menu.
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What's better in 10? Only one small thing.
The systray icon for a USB thumbdrive is clearer in 10. Looks like a thumbdrive. The 7 icon is meant to be a perspective picture of a thumbdrive, but at small scale it looks like a paintbrush or something.

About Me

Polistra was named after the original townsite of Manhattan (the one in Kansas). When I was growing up in Manhattan, I spent a lot of time exploring by foot, bike, and car. I discovered the ruins of an old mill along Wildcat Creek, and decided (inaccurately) that it was the remains of the original site of Polistra. Accurate or not, I've always liked the name, with its echoes of Poland (an under-appreciated friend of freedom) and stars. ==== The title icon is explained here. ==== Switchover: This 2007 entry marks a sharp change in worldview from neocon to pure populist. ===== The long illustrated story of Polistra's Dream is a time-travel fable, attempting to answer the dangerous revision of New Deal history propagated by Amity Shlaes. The Dream has 8 episodes, linked in a chain from the first. This entry explains the Shlaes connection.